Today is the 200th birthday of one of the masters of romantic music — Frederic Chopin.
If you aren't a student of music, you may hear the phrase "romantic music" and think it is a reference to romantic love, which it is not. Or you may think it is a somewhat nostalgic reference to ideas that were conceived in musical periods that came before, like the classical period that immediately preceded it and included some of the best–known composers in music history (i.e., Mozart and Beethoven). Again, it is not — although it is worth mentioning that Beethoven is often regarded by students of music to be something of a transitional figure from the classical period to the romantic period. After I began to hear that, I started to notice influences from both the classical and the romantic eras in his compositions. It explained a lot about Beethoven's music, that was for sure.But I digress.
The romantic music movement refers to the composition and theory of mostly the 19th century. And the thing about romantic music that has always appealed to me is the fact that it had more freedom of expression than the music that had come before. If you listen to music by the romantic composers — Chopin, Liszt, even Wagner — you will hear rich melodies and harmonies, more of a songlike quality than you will hear from Mozart or the earlier composers.
Orchestras continued to play key roles in the romantic period, but some composers, like Chopin, wrote quite a few instrumental pieces as well. Being a pianist, most of Chopin's instrumental compositions tended to be for the piano.
As a child, I remember hearing my parents play recordings of Chopin's music and thinking that it sounded delicate — in the way that the word icicle seemed delicate to me. I've been trying to figure out why I associate Chopin's music with icicles. Maybe there is a memory buried inside my head of the first time I heard a recording of Chopin, and that day was in winter. Perhaps there were icicles hanging from the roof outside, and that's how I made that connection.
I guess icicles are sturdier up north than they are in the central Arkansas town where I grew up — at least, they were quite fragile when I was a child. This winter seems to have been making the case that the global climate may, indeed, be changing, so perhaps the icicles in my hometown are made of sterner stuff now, thanks to temperatures that are colder longer than they were in those days, but when I was a child, the icicles that formed on the roof of our house didn't seem to be capable of standing up to a slight breeze. They were spindly things that would shatter if you touched them.
They were beautiful to look at, though. How they sparkled when the rays from the sun hit them just right. But those warming rays were too much for the icicles, and they would start to melt almost immediately. I guess that was the lesson I took from icicles — not that they were a threat to us, but that we were a threat to them.
Maybe that was the quality of icicles that my mind linked to Chopin's etudes and nocturnes. Beautiful to hear, yet fragile at the same time. I don't know if I thought the music, like the icicles, was endangered. But maybe I did. When I was a child, the music that was popular was loud, often raucous. I love those songs now, but when I was a child, I may have seen them as a threat. More people were listening to the modern stuff than to Chopin.
Well, Chopin's music was, indeed, made of sturdier stuff than I thought. I have noticed that, even today, more than 160 years after his death, his music can transfix an audience like nothing I have ever seen. Take a look at this clip from Vienna more than 20 years ago. Sure, the pianist is Vladimir Horowitz, but watch how everyone in that massive hall is spellbound by a single piano.
There are times when the notes are as delicate as the icicles I described earlier. But the people in the audience seem to be holding their breath so as not to miss a note. There are times when you can hear someone cough and one can only imagine the annoyed looks on the faces of those in the vicinity, so intent they seemed to be on hearing everything.
How extraordinary.
